Broken Threads

by Tessa Barclay

  Walking quickly, Jenny and her escort came out on to the broader street. The hansom was still there, the driver sitting forward with the brake off, ready to flee.

  They fell into it, Baxter closed the cover. In a moment they were off. Jenny turned her face into the corner and began to weep convulsively.

  ‘There,’ the detective said, patting her shoulder with a clumsy hand, ‘don’t be disappointed. It was just a chance it might be her.’

  But it wasn’t only the disappointment. It was the horror, the fear of what might have happened to her daughter, the feeling that Heather might be suffering as that two-year-old was, at the mercy of a heartless stranger.

  By the time they got back to her house she had recovered enough to invite Baxter in. She ordered drinks ‒ she took spirits only occasionally but tonight she felt she needed brandy.

  ‘What put you on to Mrs Thomas?’ she asked, when they were sitting with their restoratives.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t doing much good in tracking Alice Yates so I started from the other end. I put out the word I wanted to know if anyone had got hold of a pretty genteel-looking child ‒ a strange child, not from one of their own families. Mrs Thomas’s name came up, I went and had a look, I thought it might be Heather.’

  Jenny sighed.

  ‘You’re sure it isn’t?’

  ‘Completely certain.’

  He accepted the defeat. ‘Keep trying, then, eh? I’ve got other irons in the fire.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Baxter.’

  ‘Not much to thank me for, was it? A rotten experience for you.’

  ‘Are there ‒ are there many places like that?’

  ‘Heavens, yes. In and throughout London, and every other big city. One of the pamphleteers calls them the plague spots of our civilisation. Certainly very little good ever comes out of ’em.’

  ‘And the children ‒ they’re treated like that ‒’

  ‘You have to realise that the adults were treated like that before them. Parents often regard their children as just one more mouth to feed until they’re old enough to be sent out to earn a penny or two. But they’re capable of affection sometimes. Not all the women are as hard as Mrs Thomas.’

  ‘And the little girl. It seems too terrible to leave her there. She may be someone’s lost child …’ The tears welled up behind her eyes as she remembered the toddler being dragged along like a worthless rag doll.

  ‘It’s more likely she’s a little by-blow of some poor young woman who put her out to be looked after. But then she couldn’t keep up the payments ‒ fell on hard times or got ill, mebbe even died. Or mebbe she got married to a man she was scared to tell about her little mistake. So there’s this baby in a baby farm and nobody paying for her upkeep. So Mrs Thomas snaps her up cheap, I dare say.’

  ‘It’s unbearable. What will her life be?’

  Nasty, brutish and short, Baxter might have replied. Instead he remarked, ‘You can’t take on everybody else’s grief, Mrs Armstrong. You’ve enough of your own.’

  ‘But she’s so young and defenceless.’ She frowned, shaking her head to detach the memory of the weeping child. Then she said, ‘Couldn’t she be put in a foundlings’ home?’

  ‘Perhaps, if you could prise her loose from Mrs Thomas. But she’d probably claim the kid’s her niece or something like that.’

  ‘Could you go and see her?’

  ‘What? That wouldn’t be a good idea. I don’t want to attract any attention.’ He could see she was intent on helping the little girl but he didn’t want it to queer his pitch.

  ‘You could send someone.’

  ‘Well, one of the street missionaries could take it on,’ he mused, as he tugged at his beard. ‘Yes, it could be done. The Quakers’d probably take it on. They know Mrs Thomas and her like.’

  ‘Will you see to it? I’ll give you the money before you go. Do it tomorrow. I can’t bear to think of her spending many more days with that woman.’

  ‘I’ll see to it.’

  When he had gone Jenny went to bed, exhausted. But her dreams were haunted by images of the weeping child dragged by the gaunt, angry woman. Only the face she saw was Heather’s.

  Ronald came to London partly on business and partly to beg her to come home. He was shocked when he saw her. She was so thin the bones showed. When he took her out in the evening she had to wear a lace shawl to hide the almost skeletal shoulders.

  ‘You’re not doing any good here,’ he urged. ‘It’s bad for you. You’re wasting away.’

  ‘I can’t go home without Heather.’

  ‘If there was any real chance you’d find her ‒’

  ‘There is a chance, there is, there is! Don’t say it’s hopeless.’ The colour ran up over her cheekbones. Her great dark eyes reproached him.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you, my dearest,’ he said gently. ‘But there’s not been the slightest hint of ‒’

  ‘There was a chance. I wrote to you about that little girl.’

  ‘But it wasn’t Heather. And all it’s done is upset you. Come home, Jenny. I miss you. We all do.’

  Once again she felt that looming anger and resentment. Why couldn’t he understand that if once she went home again without her baby, it was as if she had given up all hope? She clenched her fists among the folds of her crinoline.

  ‘How is everything at Waterside Mill?’ she inquired.

  ‘So-so. Our pattern book for the spring is out now. I included the designs you sent but it lacks something ‒ everybody says so. Come home and do some proper work for us, Jenny. You’ll lose the feel for it if you stay in London.’

  But when he returned to Galashiels he went alone. The best he could do was extract a half-promise that she would come home for Hogmanay.

  December began with a series of hard frosts. Baxter presented himself again one morning in greatcoat and woollen muffler. She hurried down from her room to greet him.

  ‘Have you some news?’ she demanded before she had crossed the threshold of the drawing room.

  ‘I want you to come and look at another child, Mrs Armstrong.’

  She repressed a shudder. ‘In … one of those places?’

  ‘This time it’s an infant asylum. There’s a little girl there ‒ right age, right appearance as far as one can tell.’

  ‘An infant asylum? What does that mean?’

  ‘It’s on the lines of an orphanage, for abandoned children or children whose parents have had to go into the workhouse. I have to warn you, it’s kind of a grim place.’

  ‘When do you want us to go?’

  ‘Now, if it’s convenient.’

  She turned back towards the door. ‘Am I to dress plainly again?’

  ‘That’s not so important this time. Mr Drouet isn’t a criminal. At least, he claims to be respectable.’

  ‘Mr Drouet?’

  ‘He runs the place. You’ll meet him. Wrap up well, it’s cold ‒ and there’s precious little heating at the asylum.’

  She came down moments later in a thick grey cloak and a felt bonnet. Since she was now in only half-mourning for her mother she was allowed to wear sombre colours. Her muff was trimmed with silk violets of a rich purple and her bonnet had purple ribbons. She looked extremely elegant yet uninterested in her own appearance.

  The carriage Baxter had brought wasn’t a fly or a hansom but a more comfortable four-wheeler. ‘How far are we going?’ she inquired when she saw it.

  ‘It’s some way out, ma’am. South of the city, a district called Tooting. Mr Drouet’s asylum is the far side of the common ‒ I don’t know if you know it at all.’

  She only knew the area of London where she lived, and the parks in which she took the air. As they journeyed south Baxter tried to prepare her for the forthcoming encounter.

  ‘I don’t want you to be too depressed by the building, ma’am. It’s like a barracks, and the sight of some fourteen hundred children is a bit overpowering.’

  ‘Fourteen hundred? In one home?’

  ‘
Yes, ma’am. It’s an economical way to do it, you see.’ His tone was grim.

  ‘Economical! Fourteen hundred girls?’

  ‘Boys and girls, from walking age to fourteen. They get a bit schooling and learn their prayers. What else they learn I won’t vouch for. I have to tell you, I didn’t care for what I saw.’

  She shivered, drawing her cloak about her. ‘What makes you think Heather is there?’

  ‘The story I got hold of is this. Alice Yates had a baby for a few days but her scurf ‒ that’s to say, her protector, her gentleman-friend ‒ had another lark laid on for her so she had to give the kid to another woman, Mrs Scribbons. Mrs Scribbons was neighbours with Alice’s folk in Aldersgate. She was a street-singer, had a good voice by all I can learn. She took the kid round with her to help jog up the earnings. Not a bad sort, it seems.’

  Jenny studied him. ‘You’re speaking of her as if she’s dead.’

  ‘That’s it, Mrs Armstrong. Seems she got more and more sick ‒ terrible pains when she ate, sick all the time. She took the little girl with her when she left Aldersgate to live with a relation in South London. And then in early summer, I gather she passed on and her relations seem to sink out of sight ‒ there may be a strain of didiki there, I mean, they may have been gipsies. Anyhow, in August this little girl was found at Drouet’s gates not long after a party of travellers had gone through on their way to Epsom for the races.’

  After a moment’s consideration of the story Jenny said, ‘You’ve seen her?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Does she resemble the photograph?’

  ‘It’s hard to say. When you see how the children are dressed, you’ll understand. And besides, that little girl in Devil’s Acre looked like the photograph.’

  She said no more. She was steeling herself for the ordeal to come.

  The building was frightening; dark brick and peeling stucco, with a drive up to the main door through frozen laurel bushes. The windows were uncurtained and blank. When a little maidservant opened the door to them it was to reveal a large hall floored in brown linoleum, with brown-painted walls grained to look like oak and an uncarpeted staircase going up.

  Mr Drouet came forward to greet them. He was a tallish man in a greasy suit, his shirt collar creased where it could be seen above the stained lapels. Behind his spectacles his eyes looked like slate. He bowed politely to Jenny.

  ‘Mr Baxter said you would be calling,’ he said, without much welcome in his tone. ‘You’ve come just as we’re serving the midday meal.’

  ‘I’m sorry ‒ is it inconvenient?’ Jenny faltered. She was intimidated by the whole atmosphere. The place was very chill, with a strange odour in the air ‒ dampness and decay, perhaps.

  ‘Not at all, the children are well drilled in how to take their meals. If you’ll come this way?’

  They followed him into a long hall. To Jenny’s utter astonishment, there were no tables or chairs. Rows of children stood facing in one direction, towards the grimy windows. Each had a tin plate on which there was a slice of bread and room for a mug alongside. As the visitors entered heads turned, but not a sound was uttered.

  A woman clad in black and wearing a large coarse apron banged on a desk at the far end of the room. ‘Begin,’ she commanded.

  Immediately the children picked up the bread and began to wolf it down.

  It was a nightmare scene. They were arranged so that the shortest and youngest were at the far end, the tallest and oldest nearest the door. Their hands unanimously brought the tin plate up to chin level. They shoved in the slice of bread, half of it vanishing in one bite. They drank greedily at the contents of the tin mugs. The rest of the bread followed. Their movements were like ripples on a restless sea.

  They were all clad in grey, the girls in shapeless smocks, the boys in ill-fitting trousers and blouses. Their heads were shaven, although some of the older ones had hair growing again unchecked as if to prepare them for going out into the normal world. They were bare legged, in clogs with wooden soles and straps of rough leather across the instep.

  When the bread was gone, some even licked the plate like cats, gathering up the smallest morsel. Then the arms fell to their sides, one hand holding the plate, the other the mug.

  Silence.

  ‘What do they have next?’ Jenny inquired, looking at the hungry faces.

  ‘Next?’ repeated Mr Drouet, taken aback.

  ‘Is that the whole of the midday meal?’

  ‘Madam, at midday we don’t want to interrupt their work routine for too long.’

  ‘I see. So they eat more sustainingly in the evening? What is the menu then?’

  ‘They have soup, madam. And another slice of bread.’

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘What else? On four shillings and sixpence a week maintenance money?’

  Jenny was about to argue, but Baxter put a restraining hand on her sleeve. ‘Let’s see the child first,’ he said in her ear.

  Controlling herself with an effort, she fell silent.

  Mr Drouet moved off to stand by the woman in the apron. ‘Infant June Smith, stand forward,’ he called.

  No one moved.

  ‘Infant Smith, forward.’

  Still no reaction.

  With a grunt of irritation Drouet moved between the lines of children, to the far end, where the small children stood.

  ‘Infant June Smith!’

  No one responded. Drouet took one of the children by the shoulder and shook him. ‘Which is Smith?’

  Jenny hurried to stop him. The child he was grasping turned his head and pointed with a dirty finger. ‘Her, sir.’

  Other heads had turned. The children were looking at one of the smallest of their number, who stood with her head drooped down and her shoulders averted.

  ‘Are you Infant June Smith?’ Drouet demanded, coming to tower over her.

  She nodded without looking up.

  ‘Why didn’t you answer when I called you?’

  No reply.

  Drouet stooped, took her chin in his hand, and turned her face up. ‘Is this the child you are inquiring for?’ he said to Jenny.

  Jenny almost turned away in despair. This couldn’t possibly be Heather, her laughing, bubbling child of happiness. The little girl’s scalp showed grey and unwashed through the stubble of hair. Her face was thin and dirty. She stared up into Drouet’s face with eyes that looked like frozen brown leaves.

  But the eyes were hazel, and though the hair was shaved away the growth line showed high on her brow.

  ‘Heather?’ breathed Jenny.

  The child didn’t look round at her. In fact, she seemed to be trying to get her face out of Drouet’s grasp so she could hang her head again.

  ‘Heather?’ Jenny asked again.

  No response.

  Jenny turned to Baxter. ‘I don’t think so …’

  ‘Hard to tell, with her little head shaved like a convict.’

  Drouet heard the accusation in the words. He said stiffly, ‘We have an acute water shortage here, Mr Baxter. We have to draw every drop from our own well. Naturally we don’t want to waste it on continually washing children’s hair ‒ and besides, the newcomers bring infestation with them.’

  ‘No doubt,’ Baxter soothed. He looked from the tiny figure to Jenny. The other children were gaping at the tableau in utter silence.

  ‘Perhaps if we could go somewhere private?’ he suggested.

  ‘Certainly.’ Drouet let go of the little girl, and nodded at the aproned woman by the desk. She rapped the desk and said, ‘Dismiss.’ The children filed out, leaving their plates and mugs in two separate wicker hampers by the desk. As Drouet led the way out, the children stood aside like sentries to let them pass.

  The keeper of the infant asylum herded the child in front of him. She trotted on, head down, shoulders hunched, like a dog that expects a beating. ‘Office!’ Drouet barked. The child took a line across the hall, and came to a door with the word office painted on
it in black letters. She waited there until he threw the door open. ‘Inside!’ She went in.

  The grown-ups followed her. The room was small, ill-lit by a small window. There were ledgers ranged on end on a shelf. There was a chair behind the desk, a chair to one side. On a peg hung a slender cane. The child turned her eyes toward it for a moment, then looked down again.

  ‘There you are, madam,’ Drouet said. ‘Privacy.’

  Jenny nodded. She crouched down to be on the child’s level. ‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’

  The little girl would not look at her. She kept her head down. She made no reply.

  ‘Come come, tell the lady your name!’

  ‘Don’t speak to her like that!’ Jenny flared. Then, collecting herself, she took the child’s hand. ‘Are you called Heather?’

  No answer.

  ‘Are you called June Smith?’

  ‘That’s the name we assigned her,’ Drouet put in. ‘She was left at our gate in June, and we normally give a common name such as Smith or Jones as a surname.’

  ‘What’s your name, then, lovie?’

  Silence.

  ‘It’s stubbornness, sheer stubbornness!’ exclaimed Drouet. ‘Your name’s Infant June Smith, isn’t it?’

  The child nodded.

  ‘Where do you live, June?’

  The child remained mute.

  ‘Come along now, speak up when you’re spoken to! You live at the infant asylum, say that to the lady!’

  ‘Surely she isn’t able to say hard words like asylum, at her age,’ Jenny suggested.

  ‘Madam, children in this home have to answer when they’re spoken to.’

  ‘I think, sir,’ Baxter intervened, red with suppressed anger, ‘that it would be better if we could leave Mrs Armstrong alone for a while with the child.’ Unspoken was the criticism: you’re frightening her to death.

  ‘Alone?’ Drouet looked about his office, as if wondering what Jenny might steal if he left her there unsupervised. Then he shrugged. ‘The Commissioner of Police for Surrey, a noted patron of ours, has asked me to afford you every civility. I’m happy to leave my office to you, madam.’